This weekend saw us back down Hillview for a Cradley Heath club match on canals 2,3 & 4 and I was hoping it fished a bit better than it did a few weeks ago where canal 3 took all the money, low weights were caught that day for this venue 66lb and I won canal 2 with 41lb but to be fair the weather was a lot cooler than today. I was hoping to continue my run of very good form winning 5 of the last 6 Cradley matches on the bounce I was on fire I don't know what I am doing lately but it is working! This was also the first day of our annual fishing week were Stav and I go fishing to different commercials around the Midlands, there is also the pride and prestige of a £1 side bet each day to play for. After a message to Nev (2 METERS) who helps run the matches down here and catches a few kippers too I felt that if I got a decent draw I would do well with the run of form I was in, I had tied a few rigs up for the coming week and got my kit sorted out so after getting some fishery feed pellets I was primed and ready for the draw. I drew a peg in the middle of pool 4 one peg away from the aerator ( the permanent peg number escapes me ) and Stav drew in the middle of pool 3 where all the weights came from a few weeks ago, the peg looked ok as I could get to the bare bank and into the very shallow where I had been told to look for failing this it was going to be a fishing shallow job. My margins were very deep at around 3 1/2ft as the reeds came out a long way from the bank and as I had been told maybe too deep to catch well so I was going to fish shallow there, I was going to set up a short line a 2 meters in-front of me as a back up in-case all else fails. I set up 4 pole rigs too cover my peg.
Rig 1, up against the far bank at 13m around just over 1ft deep a 4x10 Preston PB Carp 1, 0.18 mainline to 0.16 hooklength with a F1 band for hard pellet & black hydro elastic.
Rig 2, the same as above but with a Tosciro 175 size 3 hook for meat or corn hookbait.
Rig 3, shallow margin rig Maver 4x12 Jurassic dibber set 18" deep with 0.16 line straight through to a size 3 175 & Preston 13h elastic.
Rig 4, top kit rig at 2 meters 4x12 Preston Durra 10, 0.16 line straight through, to a size 3 175 hook & black hydro.
For bait I had brought a bag each of micro & 4mm fishery feed pellets, 4 tins of corn & 4 tins of 6mm chopped meat plus a few different hard & soft hooker pellets.
Today for company I had Chris Owen to my left and John Bab to my right so at least we could have a good laugh if we didn't catch a lot, before the all in I had to go on the bait tub scrounge as I had left all of mine in my shed at home (plank!), just to go and show you that old age and forgetfulness creeps up on us all John Bab had forgot all of his keep & landing nets having to borrow some dodgy looking well worn things from the fishery.
On the all in I fed a pot full of mixed micro & 4mm pellets on my 13m line and I was only going to feed corn on my 2 metre line and meat to my left by hand just odd pieces now and then for later on, first put-in on the 13m line with a 6mm hard banded pellet I began to get liners straight away as there were fish over the feed pellets. I missed the first 2-3 bites as there seemed to be a lot of fish already in the peg and it took around 5mins before I hooked my first fish of the day a nice 1lb f1 and I was off the mark , with me missing another couple of bites before hooking another f1 of a similar I knew there were a lot of fish in the peg but it looked like I had fed too much at the start! feeding for Carp with a full pot of pellets were normally when I fish for f1's I would only feed with a kinder egg pot of pellets. The next couple of fish were Carp in the 2-3lb bracket which must have eaten most of the opening pot of pellets as the bites/liners began to get less as I began to feed small amounts through the kinder pot, the rest of the first hour was good as I hooked and landed a few fish from the far line while those around me were only having odd fish. Most of the fish were F1's but with the odd Carp thrown in now and then so I stuck to this line for the second hour while I was putting some fish in the net, after a couple of hours I had quick look on both my 2m line and down the edge but apart from one small 1lb Carp from the margin swim I couldn't get any bites at all so I was soon back out over the 13m line. I was catching both on the deck and up in the water taking odd fish here and there with the same rig (rig 1) if I pushed the rig right up the far bank where I had shallowed up to less than 1ft deep I was taking fish there or if I pulled the pole back to around 12m I was having odd ones shallow were the shelf dropped off to around 3ft deep. With around 3 hours of the match gone I thought I had got around 50lb in the net when it started raining heavy and you could hear the thunder in the distance getting closer, when the storm came right over the top of us the and the lightning was all around I was just holding my top kit with the shallow rig down the margins not wanting to hold 13m of carbon! I hooked a good Carp of around 4lb on red meat which I prefer on the hook while feeding plain meat but as I was playing it I had noticed that the better stamp of Carp that were in my left hand net had all come to the top of the net, the smaller fish in my other net didn't react the same, even when I put the new edition into the net the others seemed not bothered they were all just swimming around the top 1ft of water! Weather it was oxygen the rain was putting in or taking out I don't know but I had never seen fish react like that before? I know that big thunderstorms like this can de-oxygenate the water and cause fish fatality's but what ever it was the fish were up and feeding as the next put in produced another Carp, in fact while the storm was over us I had my best spell of the match and in around 45mins I had around 12 Carp all in the 2-5lb bracket shallow in the margins with the meat putting around 40lb in the net. At one point in the middle of this purple spell the rain turned into hail and it got that heavy that I thought I was going to have to pack the pole away before it got broke! I was playing Carp but as the hail was hitting my top kit it sounded like it was breaking. When the weather broke and the storm moved on the sun came out it was back to t-shirt weather, we were now into the last hour and Chris to my left was now bagging down the edge he too had caught well through the storm but my margin fish had stopped feeding and vanished. I just picked odd fish off from over and one more from the margin just before the all out sounded and at around 3lb it was my last fish of the day, as I started to pack away getting all the water from my luggage which was swimming I thought I had got around 95-105lb which I was happy with after catching 41lb from canal 2 a few weeks ago. There were some good anglers on canal 3 which had produced the better weights on the last match and the word on the bank was that Martin had caught well from opposite me but due to the trees and bushes I couldn't see him, while I was giving all the bait boxes back to the lads I had borrowed them off Barry in the right hand corner said he had caught well all day and was around the 100lb mark. We started to weigh-in from the corners of canals 2 & 3 as you can weigh both pools at the same time coming down the middle and it soon became apparent that canal 2 had not fish very well again with Steve Robson winning this lake with 54lb, canal 3 was better with most weights 50-70lb with Martin Yardsley being the best with 81lb, Stav next to him had 65lb and I knew I was 1-0 up in our side bet before I had even weighed in. As Baz in the corner peg pulled his nets out it was obvious that he was going to take the lead the scales read 110lb 8oz, there was a couple of 50-60lb weights before it was my turn and as I pulled my nets out I knew it was going to be close to Barry's weight, I was given 111lb 10oz to take the lead there was only Chris who I thought would come close as he had some good margin lumps in the last hour, Chris was given 84lb for 3rd and I had won the match by 1lb 2oz, GREAT!!! this was now my 6th win on the bounce with Cradley out of the 7 matches we have fished this year. I have never had a run like this before I must be doing something right, I have been match fishing since the age of around 12 (now 43) and never had a run like this, I win, fame or section a few times each season but this run is above all this.
More importantly I was 1-0 up on Stav for the start of fishing week. Talking to Baz after the match he had also experienced the same with all his big fish coming to the top of his net during the thunderstorm? strange that one. Thanks to Nev for the info I owe you a pint mate,cheers.
Tuesday 28 August 2012
Monday 20 August 2012
Old Hill Canal Sunday 15/7/12
After a couple of weekends off due to decorating duties I was itching to get back to it as I was on one of the best runs of my fishing career if not the best, I had fished 7 matches since the end of our pairs league at Blythe and winning 5 of them!
This match had been taken off the river Severn at Hampton Loade due to around 6ft of flood water coming down so we switched it to a local section of canal that I had not fished since I was a teenager, the idea being that the two short sections we were going to fish are off the main arm of the canal so hopefully we wouldn't be affected by boats. The main canals we use if the river is out of sorts the Staffs-Worc & Birmingham-Worc are a no go areas in the summer due to heavy boat traffic, the two sections we were going to use today are off-shoots of the main Dudley canal No2 one a dead arm called the Bumble Hole and the other an arm that takes you to Hawne Marina eventually, both of these sections are controlled by Old Hill Legion which sell day tickets on them. As most of the lads had never fished these stretches or like me not for 15-20 years it was a bit of guess work as to what we were going to catch or how to approach it, after a word with one of the lads who has fished it who came into the shop I work in it looked like a bread, worm and pellet attack for Roach and Skimmers with the odd Tench if they feed. I drew the end peg nearest the road bridge at the back of an area called Darby End this is the stretch that runs down to Hawne Marina, for as long as I can remember this bridge has been called the PAP PAP! bridge and I was going to find out why it got its name big style. As you can guess this is a humped back bridge that is only wide enough to take one vehicle at a time so every time they approach it they sound the horn!!!, as we were setting up before the match even started I reckoned I had at least 50 PAPS some of them were single long PAPS while some were going for a more short rapid fire burst of PAP PAP PAP PAP PAP!!!!! F**K me has anyone got any ear defenders by the end of the match it was driving me up the wall and as I lay in bed that night I could still hear them PAP PAP.
Anyway back to the fishing my peg was around 13m wide up to the rushes which run along the whole length of this stretch and are probably around 1m thick sticking out from the far bank, after plumbing around a bit I found there was around 4ft down the track but still 2 1/2ft over by the reeds I decided on a 3 pronged attack. I was going to fish worm & caster over by the reeds, bread punch down the track as the water colour is quite clear due to the lack of boat traffic, I was also going to put a pellet line in 13m down the canal at a 10 o'clock angle just coming up the shelf out of the track.
Rig 1 was my 13m line with a 4x10 Drennan caster float 0.08 line straight through to a 18 Preston pr322 hook with no5 elastic.
Rig 2 was at 10m down the track a Tubertini Styx float 4x12 0.08 straight through to size 20 pr31 hook with 4 elastic.
Rig 3 was the pellet line down the canal at 13m just coming up the shelf out of the track with the same float, line and elastic as rig 2 but a 18 pr322 hook.
For bait I had brought 1/2 pint of casters, 1/2 kg of worm, 1 loaf of liquidised bread and 1 pint of 1mm micro pellets I also had a couple of rounds of bread for the hook and some 4mm expanders for the hook, no squatts or pinkies as I was going for quality fish.
I fed half a pot of worm & caster over by the reeds at the start and a full pot of bread down the track, the pellet line got just a 1/4 of a pot of micros with 3-4 expanders in, I kicked off on the bread line with a 4mm piece of punched bread on the hook. It took around 5mins to get bite which was a Roach of around 3oz then I missed a couple of bites before hooking another Roach of around 1oz, two more small Roach followed in the next 5mins and while not setting the world on fire but at least I was catching which Chris on my left had failed to do yet as he had set his stall out for Bream, Tench & Carp fishing big baits and strong tackle. Then around 20mins in I hooked a better fish on the bread which pulled my no4 elastic out a few feet which surfaced as I steadily shipped back it was a nice skimmer, that's a nice bonus I thought as I slipped the net under the 1lb fish as shouts of jammy git came down the bank from Steve Robson who was two pegs away. Another couple of Roach were in the net before I hooked and landed another skimmer of around the same size on the half hour mark and it was all going well, I had three more small Roach and a small 3oz skimmer over the next 15mins before hooking and landing another skimmer of around 12oz this was going well I was just hoping that they would keep coming. With the first hour gone I was sitting pretty with around 3 1/2lb in the net already but the last 10mins had gone by without a bite so I made the decision to re-feed as I had only put that one pot in at the start, the bites came back after I put another pot of bread in but only Roach were showing at the start of hour two but I wasn't complaining. The second hour went passed without any more Skimmers just odd small Roach as the bites slowed right up to a stop and it was time for a change, I put a small worm head on the 13m line rig which I had been topping up throughout and shipped over to the reeds. I had been on the worm line for around 5mins before the float slid away which turned out to be a 3oz Rudd and on the next put in a 1oz Perch was in the net at least I was catching again, I was wrong because that was it for this line despite trying caster on the hook, jigging the rig with the worm on altering the depth I failed to get on this line. I switched to the pellet for 10mins but with no signs on this I was starting to scratch my head as I couldn't get a bite on any of my three lines, Chris to my left had only a couple of small fish to show for his efforts with his big fish attack but Steve was catching a few small fish to his left after a slow start. My peg had gone totally dead with only two 1oz Roach on a new bread line I had opened up on my right hand side down towards the bridge in the track at 11m, I was swapping and feeding between all my lines and with around 1 1/2 hours left I was on the pellet when out of the blue the float shot under and another good Skimmer was on, this one turned out to be another of around 1lb and I was hoping that they had decided to feed again. I was wrong as that was my only bite on the pellet line despite sitting on it for a good half hour after that last Skimmer we were now into the last hour and after doing the rounds again on all of my lines all I had was another two small Roach on my first punch line, while the first 2 hours were good the rest of the match had been a real struggle I was now praying for the whistle as the Paps on the bridge were giving me a headache I couldn't believe how busy a small road at the back of nowhere could be on a Sunday. I sat on the pellet for the last 20mins as I thought that if I had a bite on this it was more likely to be a Skimmer than anything else and with 5mins to go Steve shouted down asking if I had any more bites on the pellet, before I could answer him in a split second the float shot under and I struck into fresh air as I missed the bite S**T I blamed Steve for putting me off but despite willing the float to go under before the whistle it didn't. I had a match of two half's one good one bad with most of my fish coming in the first 45mins, had I caught most of the fish in the swim in that short time? Had the fish just stopped feeding? Had the Skimmers stopped feeding as the sun got up as it was 20c+ and bright? I hadn't got the answer but just had a gut feeling that there were more Skimmers in the swim, Steve spoke to one of the locals who said that he normally catches a few Skimmers & Tench up to 4lb but on a night after work? No Tench had been hooked or landed on this stretch today. I was first to weigh-in and was given 6lb 1oz by Baz on the scales which I was happy with but thought it would have been a lot more after that first burst on the bread, Chris next to me only had 13oz after sitting for big fish for 5hours but failing to hook any on another day 2-3 bites could have seen him with 10lb+?, Steve had more small fish than me with 3 small skimmers in amongst his Roach for 4lb 4oz, I went back to my peg to carry on packing up as the next peg Baz was quite a bit away and I didn't want to leave my tackle as the local kids were on the bridge waving the cars over the bridge towards each other! There was a big screech of tyres as a car and van ended up bumper to bumper! Baz had 5lb 3oz and there were a couple of 2-3lb weights passed him so I had the best weight off this section I was just hoping the dead arm had not fished I can remember catching 13 Tench from this section in a day some 15 years ago so they are in there. When we got back to the dead arm we soon found out that JB had won this section with 3lb 15oz of punch Roach off the peg that joins the main line canal most had 2-3lb weights, so I had won again I don't know what I am doing lately but it seems to be working but I still cannot get those 6 numbers up on the lottery. We all retired back to the local pub for couple of sherbets to chew over the fat of the day.
This match had been taken off the river Severn at Hampton Loade due to around 6ft of flood water coming down so we switched it to a local section of canal that I had not fished since I was a teenager, the idea being that the two short sections we were going to fish are off the main arm of the canal so hopefully we wouldn't be affected by boats. The main canals we use if the river is out of sorts the Staffs-Worc & Birmingham-Worc are a no go areas in the summer due to heavy boat traffic, the two sections we were going to use today are off-shoots of the main Dudley canal No2 one a dead arm called the Bumble Hole and the other an arm that takes you to Hawne Marina eventually, both of these sections are controlled by Old Hill Legion which sell day tickets on them. As most of the lads had never fished these stretches or like me not for 15-20 years it was a bit of guess work as to what we were going to catch or how to approach it, after a word with one of the lads who has fished it who came into the shop I work in it looked like a bread, worm and pellet attack for Roach and Skimmers with the odd Tench if they feed. I drew the end peg nearest the road bridge at the back of an area called Darby End this is the stretch that runs down to Hawne Marina, for as long as I can remember this bridge has been called the PAP PAP! bridge and I was going to find out why it got its name big style. As you can guess this is a humped back bridge that is only wide enough to take one vehicle at a time so every time they approach it they sound the horn!!!, as we were setting up before the match even started I reckoned I had at least 50 PAPS some of them were single long PAPS while some were going for a more short rapid fire burst of PAP PAP PAP PAP PAP!!!!! F**K me has anyone got any ear defenders by the end of the match it was driving me up the wall and as I lay in bed that night I could still hear them PAP PAP.
Anyway back to the fishing my peg was around 13m wide up to the rushes which run along the whole length of this stretch and are probably around 1m thick sticking out from the far bank, after plumbing around a bit I found there was around 4ft down the track but still 2 1/2ft over by the reeds I decided on a 3 pronged attack. I was going to fish worm & caster over by the reeds, bread punch down the track as the water colour is quite clear due to the lack of boat traffic, I was also going to put a pellet line in 13m down the canal at a 10 o'clock angle just coming up the shelf out of the track.
Rig 1 was my 13m line with a 4x10 Drennan caster float 0.08 line straight through to a 18 Preston pr322 hook with no5 elastic.
Rig 2 was at 10m down the track a Tubertini Styx float 4x12 0.08 straight through to size 20 pr31 hook with 4 elastic.
Rig 3 was the pellet line down the canal at 13m just coming up the shelf out of the track with the same float, line and elastic as rig 2 but a 18 pr322 hook.
For bait I had brought 1/2 pint of casters, 1/2 kg of worm, 1 loaf of liquidised bread and 1 pint of 1mm micro pellets I also had a couple of rounds of bread for the hook and some 4mm expanders for the hook, no squatts or pinkies as I was going for quality fish.
I fed half a pot of worm & caster over by the reeds at the start and a full pot of bread down the track, the pellet line got just a 1/4 of a pot of micros with 3-4 expanders in, I kicked off on the bread line with a 4mm piece of punched bread on the hook. It took around 5mins to get bite which was a Roach of around 3oz then I missed a couple of bites before hooking another Roach of around 1oz, two more small Roach followed in the next 5mins and while not setting the world on fire but at least I was catching which Chris on my left had failed to do yet as he had set his stall out for Bream, Tench & Carp fishing big baits and strong tackle. Then around 20mins in I hooked a better fish on the bread which pulled my no4 elastic out a few feet which surfaced as I steadily shipped back it was a nice skimmer, that's a nice bonus I thought as I slipped the net under the 1lb fish as shouts of jammy git came down the bank from Steve Robson who was two pegs away. Another couple of Roach were in the net before I hooked and landed another skimmer of around the same size on the half hour mark and it was all going well, I had three more small Roach and a small 3oz skimmer over the next 15mins before hooking and landing another skimmer of around 12oz this was going well I was just hoping that they would keep coming. With the first hour gone I was sitting pretty with around 3 1/2lb in the net already but the last 10mins had gone by without a bite so I made the decision to re-feed as I had only put that one pot in at the start, the bites came back after I put another pot of bread in but only Roach were showing at the start of hour two but I wasn't complaining. The second hour went passed without any more Skimmers just odd small Roach as the bites slowed right up to a stop and it was time for a change, I put a small worm head on the 13m line rig which I had been topping up throughout and shipped over to the reeds. I had been on the worm line for around 5mins before the float slid away which turned out to be a 3oz Rudd and on the next put in a 1oz Perch was in the net at least I was catching again, I was wrong because that was it for this line despite trying caster on the hook, jigging the rig with the worm on altering the depth I failed to get on this line. I switched to the pellet for 10mins but with no signs on this I was starting to scratch my head as I couldn't get a bite on any of my three lines, Chris to my left had only a couple of small fish to show for his efforts with his big fish attack but Steve was catching a few small fish to his left after a slow start. My peg had gone totally dead with only two 1oz Roach on a new bread line I had opened up on my right hand side down towards the bridge in the track at 11m, I was swapping and feeding between all my lines and with around 1 1/2 hours left I was on the pellet when out of the blue the float shot under and another good Skimmer was on, this one turned out to be another of around 1lb and I was hoping that they had decided to feed again. I was wrong as that was my only bite on the pellet line despite sitting on it for a good half hour after that last Skimmer we were now into the last hour and after doing the rounds again on all of my lines all I had was another two small Roach on my first punch line, while the first 2 hours were good the rest of the match had been a real struggle I was now praying for the whistle as the Paps on the bridge were giving me a headache I couldn't believe how busy a small road at the back of nowhere could be on a Sunday. I sat on the pellet for the last 20mins as I thought that if I had a bite on this it was more likely to be a Skimmer than anything else and with 5mins to go Steve shouted down asking if I had any more bites on the pellet, before I could answer him in a split second the float shot under and I struck into fresh air as I missed the bite S**T I blamed Steve for putting me off but despite willing the float to go under before the whistle it didn't. I had a match of two half's one good one bad with most of my fish coming in the first 45mins, had I caught most of the fish in the swim in that short time? Had the fish just stopped feeding? Had the Skimmers stopped feeding as the sun got up as it was 20c+ and bright? I hadn't got the answer but just had a gut feeling that there were more Skimmers in the swim, Steve spoke to one of the locals who said that he normally catches a few Skimmers & Tench up to 4lb but on a night after work? No Tench had been hooked or landed on this stretch today. I was first to weigh-in and was given 6lb 1oz by Baz on the scales which I was happy with but thought it would have been a lot more after that first burst on the bread, Chris next to me only had 13oz after sitting for big fish for 5hours but failing to hook any on another day 2-3 bites could have seen him with 10lb+?, Steve had more small fish than me with 3 small skimmers in amongst his Roach for 4lb 4oz, I went back to my peg to carry on packing up as the next peg Baz was quite a bit away and I didn't want to leave my tackle as the local kids were on the bridge waving the cars over the bridge towards each other! There was a big screech of tyres as a car and van ended up bumper to bumper! Baz had 5lb 3oz and there were a couple of 2-3lb weights passed him so I had the best weight off this section I was just hoping the dead arm had not fished I can remember catching 13 Tench from this section in a day some 15 years ago so they are in there. When we got back to the dead arm we soon found out that JB had won this section with 3lb 15oz of punch Roach off the peg that joins the main line canal most had 2-3lb weights, so I had won again I don't know what I am doing lately but it seems to be working but I still cannot get those 6 numbers up on the lottery. We all retired back to the local pub for couple of sherbets to chew over the fat of the day.
Monday 13 August 2012
Bockamin pools Sunday 24/6/12
This weekend saw us at the Brockamin Pools near Worcester we had the bottom pool booked for a Cradley heath club match, one of the lads had fished here the day before on another club match saying that 66lb was the beast weight with a few 40-50lb backing weights. I had not fished these pools for around 3-4 years but they contain some real big monsters in the 15-25lb bracket so if you fish this pool on the pole you have to gear up, there are 2 islands on this pool with around 50 permanent pegs and around 70% of them have an island to fish to. I peg 24 which is down the left hand side of the pool with the last peg able to throw to the island, the wind was blowing down the pool towards corner peg 29 which looked really good as it has lots of room to itself, the wind was quite strong blowing right to left and a jacket on jacket off day as some heavy showers came over but in-between them it was quite warm. I was going to attack the point of the island with the method feeder & pellet waggler and set up a heavy pole rig for the margins,
The method feeder was a 28gram Guru X-safe with 8lb mainline, 0.20 hooklength to a 14 pr27 hook with a bait spike for mini boilies although I had others set up with bait bands for pellets.
The pellet wagg was a 4ssg job with a Mayo connector and gripper stops, 5lb maxima mainline to 12 pr27 hook and a 0.20 hook length with a lasso set up for the pellet.
The margin pole rig was 4x12 Preston Durra 10 float in the 4ft deep margin, 0.22 line straight through to a size 4 Tubertini 175 hook finished off with red hydro elastic.
For bait I brought some micro pellets for the method feeder, 4 pints of 8mm pellets for the wagg and 4 pints of dead maggots for the margin, I had also brought some corn and meat but they stayed in the bag when I drew an island peg, plus various boilies for the hook.
I started the match on the method feeder cast 30m to 2 wooden stumps that stuck up from the end of the island while pinging the odd 8mm pellet over the top, it took around 15mins to get my first bite a nice 5lb common was safely in the net took on a white 10mm boilie. By the end of the first hour I had managed 5 carp all in the 3-5lb bracket all on the white boilie and from what I could see around me I was doing ok as there were odd carp coming out but no one with the amount I had, so if it ain't broke don't fix it!, I stuck with the method for hour 2 and ended with 3 more carp and 2 nice bream of around 4lb each. Over the next half hour I only had 1 carp and I felt it was time to have a look on another line, Colin to my left had around 4 carp, Kev 2 pegs to my right was having a few skimmers on the pole line but Mark in corner peg 29 was starting to put a few fish together after losing the first 4 carp in the margins to a tree root!
All the time I was fishing the method I had been pinging 8mm pellets over the top and while I was on the method when the sun came from behind the clouds I could see the odd fishy swirl or shape just under the surface, I was only going to give the wagg 10mins as the wind was quite strong blowing down the pool from right to left and I didn't want to waste too much time if I couldn't get the presentation right. I put a 8mm pellet under the lasso and cast out towards the stumps after feeding 5-6 pellets before the cast,( I think this feed first and cast over the top is most important on the pellet wagg as most of your bites will come in the first 20 seconds after the float has landed you are holding the rod instead of messing around with catty and will end up hitting more bites than someone who casts and feeds later ending up with more fish in your net! ), 5 seconds after the float hit the surface it settled and slid under I was in straight away a nice common of around 8lb was my reward, this was I herd moans & groans from the other side of the pool (christ he's catching on the wagg now!). A few minutes later while I was playing carp no2 on the pellet waggler I saw Barry who had made the jealous comment scrambling around in his gun sling setting up the pellet wagg, too late I thought to myself as I had got the fish my side of the stumps after feeding them for half the match before going for them.
The 2 corner pegs to my left were now starting to catch strongly as the match wore on there empty pegs and wind blowing into them started to bring them some big fish, I was catching steady on the wagg but with no big lumps the first fish being the biggest most of them in the 3-5lb range. With half an hour to go I tried the margin hoping for one or two big lumps to top up my smaller fish, I had fed the margin from the beginning with big pots of dead maggots every now and then with 4 maggots on the hook I lowered the rig in and awaited the action, after around 15mins down the edge with nothing to show but a couple of roach I thought I was wasting time so I spent the last bit of the match on the wagg hooking my last carp 5mins from the whistle. I ended a very enjoyable match with 22 carp and 2 bream while I thought I had done well Mark Farley on corner peg 29 had caught lots in the last half of the match big things from down the edge as well but he had lost a lot also, Colin Knock to my left had caught well from his margin in the last hour playing one real big fish for a long time with shouts of "look at the size of that" from the opposite side as he netted it meant it was going down to the scales to sort this out at this end of the pool.
By the time I had packed up my gear the first half a dozen pegs had been weighed in with Chris Owen being the best so far with 88lb from peg 4 mainly margin fish caught in the last hour, there were a couple of 30-50lb weights before Ollie on the top point of the second island had 65lb. Kev Clarke had a cracking bag of fish off peg 22 fishing pole and worm all day for 19 Bream and a solo Carp for 78lb ( the carp was around 8lb ). My bag went 122lb which put me in the lead, Colin on my left had 95lb with fish to 15lb and then the guy who I thought had won the match Mark Farley put 105lb on the scales he told me he must have left at least another 50lb in the water due to a combination of starting off too light and some tree roots in the water! Baz opposite me had 56lb then a 64lb and a 72lb it was looking good for me, Stu was the only other weight of note off the first island with 64lb, Stu said he lost a Carp of 12-13lb after playing the fish for a good while he netted the fish only for the landing net to rip and the fish drop back into the water breaking him in the process on the frame of the net as it swam off!!! OOPS or words to that effect. I had a great days fishing and I was happy to have won although I had drawn a good peg 1st, 2nd & 3rd were all in a line at the wind assisted end of the pool, the end of a good day was finished off with us retiring to the Fox pub to talk about the one that got away.
The method feeder was a 28gram Guru X-safe with 8lb mainline, 0.20 hooklength to a 14 pr27 hook with a bait spike for mini boilies although I had others set up with bait bands for pellets.
The pellet wagg was a 4ssg job with a Mayo connector and gripper stops, 5lb maxima mainline to 12 pr27 hook and a 0.20 hook length with a lasso set up for the pellet.
The margin pole rig was 4x12 Preston Durra 10 float in the 4ft deep margin, 0.22 line straight through to a size 4 Tubertini 175 hook finished off with red hydro elastic.
For bait I brought some micro pellets for the method feeder, 4 pints of 8mm pellets for the wagg and 4 pints of dead maggots for the margin, I had also brought some corn and meat but they stayed in the bag when I drew an island peg, plus various boilies for the hook.
I started the match on the method feeder cast 30m to 2 wooden stumps that stuck up from the end of the island while pinging the odd 8mm pellet over the top, it took around 15mins to get my first bite a nice 5lb common was safely in the net took on a white 10mm boilie. By the end of the first hour I had managed 5 carp all in the 3-5lb bracket all on the white boilie and from what I could see around me I was doing ok as there were odd carp coming out but no one with the amount I had, so if it ain't broke don't fix it!, I stuck with the method for hour 2 and ended with 3 more carp and 2 nice bream of around 4lb each. Over the next half hour I only had 1 carp and I felt it was time to have a look on another line, Colin to my left had around 4 carp, Kev 2 pegs to my right was having a few skimmers on the pole line but Mark in corner peg 29 was starting to put a few fish together after losing the first 4 carp in the margins to a tree root!
All the time I was fishing the method I had been pinging 8mm pellets over the top and while I was on the method when the sun came from behind the clouds I could see the odd fishy swirl or shape just under the surface, I was only going to give the wagg 10mins as the wind was quite strong blowing down the pool from right to left and I didn't want to waste too much time if I couldn't get the presentation right. I put a 8mm pellet under the lasso and cast out towards the stumps after feeding 5-6 pellets before the cast,( I think this feed first and cast over the top is most important on the pellet wagg as most of your bites will come in the first 20 seconds after the float has landed you are holding the rod instead of messing around with catty and will end up hitting more bites than someone who casts and feeds later ending up with more fish in your net! ), 5 seconds after the float hit the surface it settled and slid under I was in straight away a nice common of around 8lb was my reward, this was I herd moans & groans from the other side of the pool (christ he's catching on the wagg now!). A few minutes later while I was playing carp no2 on the pellet waggler I saw Barry who had made the jealous comment scrambling around in his gun sling setting up the pellet wagg, too late I thought to myself as I had got the fish my side of the stumps after feeding them for half the match before going for them.
The 2 corner pegs to my left were now starting to catch strongly as the match wore on there empty pegs and wind blowing into them started to bring them some big fish, I was catching steady on the wagg but with no big lumps the first fish being the biggest most of them in the 3-5lb range. With half an hour to go I tried the margin hoping for one or two big lumps to top up my smaller fish, I had fed the margin from the beginning with big pots of dead maggots every now and then with 4 maggots on the hook I lowered the rig in and awaited the action, after around 15mins down the edge with nothing to show but a couple of roach I thought I was wasting time so I spent the last bit of the match on the wagg hooking my last carp 5mins from the whistle. I ended a very enjoyable match with 22 carp and 2 bream while I thought I had done well Mark Farley on corner peg 29 had caught lots in the last half of the match big things from down the edge as well but he had lost a lot also, Colin Knock to my left had caught well from his margin in the last hour playing one real big fish for a long time with shouts of "look at the size of that" from the opposite side as he netted it meant it was going down to the scales to sort this out at this end of the pool.
By the time I had packed up my gear the first half a dozen pegs had been weighed in with Chris Owen being the best so far with 88lb from peg 4 mainly margin fish caught in the last hour, there were a couple of 30-50lb weights before Ollie on the top point of the second island had 65lb. Kev Clarke had a cracking bag of fish off peg 22 fishing pole and worm all day for 19 Bream and a solo Carp for 78lb ( the carp was around 8lb ). My bag went 122lb which put me in the lead, Colin on my left had 95lb with fish to 15lb and then the guy who I thought had won the match Mark Farley put 105lb on the scales he told me he must have left at least another 50lb in the water due to a combination of starting off too light and some tree roots in the water! Baz opposite me had 56lb then a 64lb and a 72lb it was looking good for me, Stu was the only other weight of note off the first island with 64lb, Stu said he lost a Carp of 12-13lb after playing the fish for a good while he netted the fish only for the landing net to rip and the fish drop back into the water breaking him in the process on the frame of the net as it swam off!!! OOPS or words to that effect. I had a great days fishing and I was happy to have won although I had drawn a good peg 1st, 2nd & 3rd were all in a line at the wind assisted end of the pool, the end of a good day was finished off with us retiring to the Fox pub to talk about the one that got away.
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